The Favourite Queer Queen of England

So this might be a bit late now, the hype's died down and everyone's seen it or heard of it. But I've been busy trying to settle in at university, and not let unnecessary stress get to me like it likes to 24/7...

The Favourite was a jumble of genres and I loved that the most about it; it shocked you, held you in awe, made you laugh; and, weirdly, nothing felt out of place. Maybe the ending, but that's all I can think of for this film!

But the biggest detail I heard people complaining about was "I mean... we don't know if she was a lesbian."

Now, I understand the basis of this usual argument. Because, in history, we absolutely cannot draw too many strong conclusions to one individual, let alone conclude with specific labels, like lesbian. Except an historical figure's sexuality and sexual orientation is always held ambiguiously when confronted to be queer. Let us have our icons, for crying out loud. It's always when there's a hint that they had feeling for someone of the same sex people start to say "oh well there's no way of knowing" and I get so tired of it.

It's not intentionally homophobic to think this way, but when you say it you're basically admitting you assume every great person in history must be heterosexual.

I mean, just check the comments of the Daily Mail discussing this love here.

Anyway, The Favourite discusses the realtionship between Queen Anne and Lady Marlborough. I think we can assume that Abigail is not gay, simply just using the Queen (sorry if that was a spoiler). The nicknames they had for each other, the way their relationship would strain Anne's others (her marriage and family, etc), can be counted as evidence for their relationship.

But the letters between the former two do have a lot to say:

The best evidence for Anne's lesbianism (or at least their queerness), and Lady Sarah's, was the letters between them, the love clearly flowing into them to each other. It's even been said that Anne was discouraged from having these "unnatural" desires for women around her. Her dependency on Sarah grew unhealthily, the more people left her through death or politics. She was a tragic figure above all.



All of the letters between the two great historic figures can be found in Private Correspondence of Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, illustrative of the court and times of Queen Anne.

Want to read more about Queen Anne and Lady Marlborough?
https://www.bustle.com/p/what-happened-to-the-real-lady-sarah-the-favourite-doesnt-tell-the-whole-story-13171141
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/film/2019/01/favourite-historically-accurate-its-depiction-queen-anne-s-lesbianism